Love in Shakespeare's Sonnet 128 and Gibran's The Prophet
William Shakespeare's "Sonnet 128" suggests a rather playful and sensual approach to love, while an excerpt on love and marriage from Kahlil Gibran's The Prophet has a didactic and intellectual tone. Shakespeare revels in lustful possession of his lover, but Gibran advises leaving space between partners in their relationship.
Well-endowed with imagery, Shakespeare's sonnet evokes the vision of a woman swaying back and forth playing a spinet, and the poet sitting back smiling and enjoying her movements, aroused by her music and charm. Master of double entendre, Shakespeare writes "Sonnet 128" as a sexual conceit. He compares her playing beautiful music on a "blessed" wooded instrument to her playing his blessed wooden instrument (phallic symbol). In fact, he sees the woman as his playtoy and object of possession for him to exploit for his own sexual enjoyment, misinterpreting his selfish lust as love.
The poem has an atmosphere of licentiousness, and Shakespeare employs many sexual puns and innuendoes to provide for this tone. His diction exhibits an earthy element: "playing music on blessed wood," "sweet fingers gently swaying," "wiry concord," "jacks nimbly leaping," "reaping a harvest," "wood's boldness," "change of state when tickled," "dancing chips," and "fingers walking with gentle gait." An interpretation of any of these preceding phrases could describe either his lover playing a spinet or performing a sexual act with consequent gratification. "Change of state when tickled" indicates the achievement of an erection. "Reaping a harvest" represents his sexual climax and ejaculation. "Wiry concord" makes reference to another poem in ...
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Although the confederation gained some substantial powers, the crucial powers to tax and regulate commerce remained with the individual states. Each state passed their own currency, and therefore created inflation and made “Continentals” in circulation worthless. Compounded with restrictions on trade to Great Britain and down the Mississippi River, the states became mired in a heavy depression. John Fiske, of the conservative view, realized the precarious situation when he stated “the Nation was under the verge of collapse and near-anarchy and that the five year period after 1783 was the most critical time in American History.” Robert Morris, secretary of finance, resorted to desperate measures with the Newburgh conspiracy in an attempt to raise funds for a depleted military; but it took an impassioned plea from General Washington himself to put down the rebellion. Furthermore, the Articles allowed for personal rights abuses such as unsubstantiated foreclosures...
Meyer, Michael. The Bedford Introduction to Literature. Ed. 8th ed. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2008. 2189.
2nd ed. of the book. New York: St. James Press, 1995. Literature Resource Center -. Web.
One of the largest issues that the Articles faced was the inability to enforce taxes (Roark p. 237). Due to the large amount of debt that was generated from engaging in war, establishing western settlements, and the formation of peace with Indians (Roark p. 237), the confederation government had an enormous debt that they could not resolve. Another large problem was the Articles’ inability to administer, sell, or determine the borders of new territories (Roark p. 230). The result of this was a lack of a plan to expand the United States and stagnation in possible
Religion ties American’s of different races and cultures together in various ways. It provides unity and hope among a very diverse group of people. In today’s American society religion provides deep connection to American’s through socialization and social control.
Treatment of sex is what sets apart Measure for Measure from other Shakespearean comedies. Sex in Shakespeare is usually the source of enjoyment and happiness. However, in Measure for Measure, which in terms of genre belongs to the so-called dark/bitter comedies or problem plays, sex is the gloomy source of death. Jokes about sex are dismal and include allusions to venereal diseases such as syphilis. Only two of Shakespeare’s 38 surviving plays contain scenes in brothels. This is one of them, the other is Pericles.
Clark, W. G. and Wright, W. Aldis , ed. The Complete Works of William Shakespeare. Vol. 1. New York: Nelson-Doubleday
The first quatrain introduces the surreal relationship between the young man and the poet in the choice of diction that is used. The first line of the sonnet "That thou hast her," uses strong alliterative qualities in the stressed first syllables of each word. In doing so, the imagery that is created is one of conceit and arrogance on the behalf of Shakespeare. Generally, a man who has been cuckold by the infidelities of his mistress is not so swift to forgive his betrayer. Instead, he narcissistically tells the friend that the affair is "not all [his] grief" (1). Likewise, Shakespeare alternately uses hypermetric and iambic lines in the first quatrain. Lines one and three are regular iambic pentameter but lines two and four are hypermetrical iambic pentameter. When referring to the young man and the pseudo-importance of their relationship, Shakespeare implements regular iambic pentameter, trying to convince the rea...
Over the years, society has come to evolve and progressively become more efficient as society’s viewpoints and perspectives on various aspects of life have also changed. However, the one aspect of life that has stayed constant has been religion. The impact of a constant religious opinion on a changing society has detrimental and benign effects on the populace of such a society.
Sonnet 130 is Shakespeare’s harsh yet realistic tribute to his quite ordinary mistress. Conventional love poetry of his time would employ Petrarchan imagery and entertain notions of courtly love. Francis Petrarch, often noted for his perfection of the sonnet form, developed a number of techniques for describing love’s pleasures and torments as well as the beauty of the beloved. While Shakespeare adheres to this form, he undermines it as well. Through the use of deliberately subversive wordplay and exaggerated similes, ambiguous concepts, and adherence to the sonnet form, Shakespeare creates a parody of the traditional love sonnet. Although, in the end, Shakespeare embraces the overall Petrarchan theme of total and consuming love.
In this essay, I will explore the religious experience in general and some of its variations around the world. The focus will be on the types of religious beliefs and religious leaders, especially in small-scale societies. An exploration of Christianity, Judaism, Islam, or any other major religion is beyond the scope of this essay. The approach taken is that of cultural relativity--religious practices or beliefs are not evaluated in terms of their "correctness" or "sophistication" but, rather, in terms of their function within the societies that have them.
Then, I will present the case Cloutier v. Costco Wholesale, which shall illustrate how everything fits together – from the broad definition of religion to the handling of a filed charge.
Discrimination based on or derived from religion has been a cause of significant suffering. Prejudice directed against people based on their religious beliefs, practice, identification or association has resulted in a wide range of discriminatory practices. Prejudice and discrimination based on religion continue to be problems even in countries that otherwise has achieved a high level of religious diversity. Prejudice based on religion has been used to justify discrimination against those with different religious beliefs, individuals of various ethnicities, those who are not exclus...
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